


Sorrow Overthrown

by kijikun



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Eggpreg, Fledgling - Freeform, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-08
Updated: 2011-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijikun/pseuds/kijikun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel goes to the Garden with the egg he is sure will never hatch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrow Overthrown

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Untitled](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2205) by sansdatelimite. 



> Sequel to sansdatelimite's [comment fic](http://community.livejournal.com/comment_fic/196626.html?thread=42240018#t42240018). Non canon compliant. Thanks to my betas amenona1 and mulder200S

Castiel goes to the Garden.

He finds a soft spot of moss and curls his grace around the egg he has nestled there. "Oh little one," he whispers as he wraps his wings around them both. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Dean had wanted their nestling. He'd wanted this just as much as Castiel and he'd... he'd blamed this on Dean. The human that had stood willing to give up _everything_ for them and Castiel had accused him of not caring...

Castiel strokes the egg and the morns the flickering grace he feels in it. A tiny flame almost extinguished. "He loved us," Castiel tells the dying nestling inside. "Your other father loved us so dearly. You would have been everything to us."

"Castiel," a soft voice speaks behind him.

Raphael's voice.

Castiel flares his wings, hissing, ready to defend his dying egg. "Stay away!"

The Archangel holds his hand up. "Peace brother. I mean you nor your egg harm."

"Then what do you want?" Castiel demands. Even with his "promotion" as Dean had put it, he is still not capable of defeating Raphael. But he will try.

Raphael bows his head and his grace is almost sad, guilty. "I know I have done nothing to allow you to trust me again, brother. But I did what I was commanded, what I thought right." He pauses. "I came to see why you are not with your mate for the hatching."

Castiel curls over the egg again. "It's dying. It's grace is fading. I... I did something wrong, didn't I?" He doesn't know why he says this to Raphael of all his brothers, and he suddenly, desperately misses Balthazar. The elder brother he could rely on.

Confusion colors Raphael's grace. "Castiel..." He stops. "I'd forgotten. You were one of the last hatched. You didn't know."

"Know what?" Castiel wants his brother gone. He wants to mourn the loss of so much... his nestling, his mate, the future he didn't know was in his reach until a sliver ring was flung at him.

Raphael approaches slowly. "I have failed in much. As our Father's healer, I should have come to you from the first." Castiel sees nothing but sincerity in his brother's grace. He so wants to be able to trust his brothers as he once had.

Which is why he allows Raphael to kneel down beside them in the soft moss. "The nestling is dying," he whispers again.

"No, Castiel. Your nestling is not dying," Raphael tells him.

Castiel's grace quivers. "Do not toy with me, please, brother."

Raphael's grace soothes over his, in an act of comfort. "What is dying out is your grace, Castiel. The closer to hatching an egg is, the less of its parents grace it maintains. When a nestling hatches they receive their own grace."

 _Could it really be?_

"The egg will hatch?" he asks, too afraid to hope.

Rpahael soothes him again. "Very soon. I would send you to your mate but the trip would be dangerous at this time."

The egg nestled against Castiel vibrates ever so gently. "Oh," Castiel gasps, torn between delight and the painful twist to his grace.

"It hurts, I know. The severing always hurts. Don't fight it, let it come," Raphael comforts.

The egg vibrates again, stronger this time. A hairline crack forms down one side. The painful twist hits Castiel grace again.

Castiel loses track of time, but time is fluid in Heaven and more so in the Garden. He's tired, worn, but his tiny nestling is curled in his arms and wings. The nestling bears Dean's green eyes and that's all Castiel cares about.

He and Dean have a son.

"Will you name him now?" Raphael asks.

Castiel almost forgot his brother was there. "I..." Should he name the nestling without Dean? They'd never decided upon a name. But... "Robert James Winchester."

Raphael grace is amused and he chuckles. "You are your parents fledgling at that, Castiel. I will leave you to rest."

Castiel's too caught up in the joy of his tiny nestling to think to question.

The chance to tell Dean cannot come too soon.

***

Dean drags himself into the motel room, kicking the door shut behind him. He keeps meaning to head to... someplace. Not Lisa's. Not Bobby's.

Move on. Find a hunt that's more that a days drive. He's got plenty to pick from in this post-aborted-apocalypse age.

He locks the door mechanically and he hears his dad in the back of his head telling him to put down salt lines. He ignores it.

His knuckles are scraped, a long gash down his side, cuts on his arms from broken glass. Simple salt and burn just over the state line but Dean went and got sloppy.

"Dean," a familiar rough voice says softly.

He jerks his head towards the voice. It's... "Cas?" His voice sounds like five miles of bad road even to himself. Like he's barely spoke since Cas left.

Cas looks almost uncertain from where he sits on the end of the bed. "You were not here. So I waited."

"A hunt," Dean says with a shrug of his shoulders. His chest aches. Cas' face when Dean threw the ring still haunts him. The words Cas spoke.

Damn it, they should have been mourning together, not...

"You're injured," Cas voice takes on a worried note. He rises to his feet, crossing the floor towards Dean, hand reaching out to Dean.

Dean holds up his hand to ward the angel off. "I'm pretty sure we had the 'you can't always be healing me' talk," Dean tells him, a bit harsher than he means to. "Why are you here?"

Cas' hand falls. "I should have been here... but I didn't know. Dean, you must believe me I did not know." Cas' forehead wrinkles and his eyes are wide, imploring.

"Cas, Cas. I believe you. But just what am I believing here?" Dean asks wearily. "That you accused me of somehow killing our kid? Or you taking off leaving me to grieve you both for a week?"

In a split second Cas' face shuts down, going back to the stony mask that was once the norm.

Dean leans heavily against the door and closes his eyes. "Shit. Look I'm tired. I hurt. I haven't slept good since you left. I'm not good at the talking shit at the best of times, Cas." There's a pressure in his eyes, against his eyelids, and he fights back the feeling. "I don't want to fight with you. Please."

Warm fingers touch his face. Cas always makes sure his touch his warm for Dean. Always. "I didn't come for a fight. I came to share joy." Cas' soft words don't make sense to Dean, even as he opens his eyes.

The aches and pains ease away and Dean doesn't have the energy to even gripe about it. He leans into Cas' touch and body. "Joy?"

Cas' smile is... and Dean will never admit or say this outside of his head, like the sun after a storm. "Come." Cas laces his fingers with Dean's and tugs him towards the bed. "I would have come sooner but we couldn't travel so soon after the hatching."

Dean stumbles. "Hatching?" he repeats dumbly. _Hatching. Hatching._ That meant the egg. That mean the egg... the baby...

Nestled in a nest of pillows, blankets, and Dean's clothes is a baby. The tiny chest rises and falls.

Alive.

Very carefully Dean sit down on the bed. "The egg hatched."

Cas' settles down beside him and nuzzles his throat. "Yes. You have a son. We have a beautiful, healthy nestling."

Dean reaches out and touches one tiny hand. His hands shake and something inside him feels like its about to splinter. Break loose. And it scares him so damn much. "I thought... you said the grace was fading."

"I didn't understand. Not until Raphael found me in the garden," Castiel breathes against his skin.

With a tightly controlled breath, Dean eases his son into his arms. Cradles the baby to his chest. He vaguely remembers holding Sammy like this, but Sammy was older, bigger, and Sammy was his brother not his... "We have a son."

He'll demand the full story later, but he's holding their son. A son. They have a _son_.

Cas makes a happy rumbling and nuzzles Dean again. There's a rustle then soft black feathers encircle the three of them. "He has your eyes."

Dean's pretty sure he's grinning like a manic. "We never decided on a name."

"Robert James Winchester," Cas tells him.

"Yeah," Dean agrees looking down at the bundle in his arms. The blond hair, the tiny downy wings. "He looks like a Robert."

Dean leans back in Cas' arms exhaustion and joy waring. He loses time between blinks, because when he opens them he's on his side with the baby back in its little nest. Cas' right wing curled over them all.

They need a crib or something. Do they have anything to feed Robert? How are they going to find baby clothes that accommodate wings? He means to say all these things but none of them come out.

"Need to open a savings account," he tells Cas sleepily.

Feathers shift over Dean's body and Cas arm is a warm band across Dean's chest. "Why?"

Dean rubs his thumb over one of Robert's little hands. "College fund."


End file.
